Company History

Consip S.p.A. – whose original name was CON.S.I.P. , acronym for Concessionaria Servizi Informativi Pubblici – is a company that is entirely and directly property of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance that operates exclusively on behalf of the State, with the aim of engaging in information technology, consultancy and support of public administration activities.

The company was established in the course of 1998 as an operative tool to radically change information technology management in what was then the Ministry of the Treasury, the Budget and Economic Planning. That change was to take place on the basis of an extremely innovative model that would privilege the recourse to the market to ensure the development and management of Public Administration information systems, in order to achieve the primary objective of maximum effectiveness and economic soundness of activity, while maintaining within control of the Administration the definition of the strategies and ensuring at the same time the continuity and dependability of the results achieved, especially in some highly critical areas. 

This radical change of approach was introduced within the context of a wider reform process initiated by the then Minister of the Treasury Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who through the April 3rd, 1997 Law no. 94 and the Legislative Decree No. 279 of August 7th, 1997, defined new public finance management criteria, reforming the way the financial budget was kept and introducing in the public sphere an analytic accounting method based on expenditure centres and economic criteria.  The implementation of such a wide-ranging reform had to be supported on solid organizational and instrumental foundations that would be able to make the best use of innovation, especially in the area of information technology, in order to support the change.
Specifically, with the Legislative Decree No. 414 of November 19th, 1997, Consip was entrusted with the State Administration information technology activity in the areas of finance and accounting.  Later, with the Minister of the Treasury Decrees of December 22nd, 1997, and June 17th, 1998, the Company was given the task of managing and developing the information technology services of the same Ministry. All this legislation also solved the problem that had been raised at EU level concerning the entrusting of all the IT activities of the State General Accounting Department to Finsiel, a company that once privatized had been operating in a de facto monopoly.

Within the same logic of a continuing effort to use information technologies in supporting change, the 2000 Budget Law identified Consip as the service structure for the provisioning of goods and services on behalf of public administrations. The Budget Laws of the following years defined the regulations that the company had to abide with in the implementation in what had become the Program for the Rationalization of Public Expenditure in Goods and Services.
The initial core of professionals that had been called upon to make up the managerial and technical structure of the company had a very diverse origin. It is these very diverse professional “histories” of the original core of people who entered the company that have allowed it to develop a corporate culture bent on results, based on strong ethical and public service principles, albeit fully respecting the role played by the Administration.
Within this context, the company was able to grow and achieve results in an environment characterized by novelty, strong change requirements, a need for discontinuity and “urgent” requests that had to be met with quick and effective solutions.  In this phase, if we were to identify a term to define the success of the Company, we would employ the word “complementarity”. Only the complementarity of the experiences of the people involved, and their accumulation in the determination to create a “team”, has allowed the Company to overcome initial difficulties and achieve its results. 

The start of the activity related to the provisioning rationalization project led to another period of convulsions that had to be entirely invented, a period in which the Company experienced its second great phase of activity and expansion between 2000 and 2001.  Since 2002, its structure has become more stable, being based on a mature organization and a team of some 450 professionals (today they are approximately 500).  During this period, recruiting from the market the very specific professional profiles required by a project that was unique at a European level proved somewhat complex. Then company’s activity required competences in market analysis, not too inclined towards the operational management of provisioning, with a strong propensity to interpret legal issues and also able to create satisfactory working relationships with the public administrations and the market. Today, the gathering of all of these competences within Consip constitutes an asset of undoubted value, able to engage in innovating projects in synergy with the Public Administration and exclusively in its interest. 
Regarding this last point, the legislative framework previously mentioned clearly illustrates the strategic design underlining the plan aimed at the modernization and rationalization of the information systems and, more generally, the processes and organization of the Ministry. The role entrusted to Consip is that of an instrumental tool of the Administration’s action that has a functional role in relation to the Administration, which on its part directs operations on the basis of the strategic objectives it has identified.

The company has immediately acquired the connotation of a structure dedicated to devising and managing the activities it is entrusted with that is also able to express the necessary know-how to engage complex information technology projects, the organization, the processes, emerging technologies, in close integration with ministerial structures. It is this setup that allows for Consip’s “streamlined” structure, a structure that is endowed with a high level of professionalism that is strongly oriented towards using the market for the merely implementation phase of projects, so as to maximize the economic benefits obtainable from the general interplay of free and transparent competition mechanisms, albeit fulfilling the service level required by Public Administration. 
To conclude, the activity of Consip may be subdivided into three macro-categories: 

1. Technical and specialized consultancy in the Administration’s decisional processes in the areas of automation and information technology, in its role as technical support structure at the exclusive service of the Administration.
2. Management, supervision and strategic planning of the supply of goods and services, ensuring the meeting of the qualitative and economic objectives required by Public Administration.
3. Direct provision of information technology consultancies or services that are instrumental to information technology operations in the areas of activity that are exclusively reserved to the State.

The Company has thus gradually taken the shape of an Administration structure that is capable of playing a leading role both in the information technology sector and, more in general, in all initiatives that are substantially characterized by innovation. In the light of the magnitude of the problems that need to be met and of the complexity of the overall structure of Public Administration, Consip felled constantly engaged in “frontier” projects in which the use of technology represents the precondition and vehicle for the improvement of internal processes and of the services delivered to citizens and the economy.
The complexity of these transformation projects requires necessarily that the Administration is able to express from within implementation, planning and strategic capabilities.  Consip is that constituent part of the Administration that has the task to “internalize” high-level know-how in the areas of organization, processes and information systems. It consequently can’t be considered on the same level as the consultancy and services agency that operate in the market, because its task is not only that of supplying indications on the possible future evolution of technology, tend analyses, benchmark comparisons with other similar situations, but also that of planning and managing from a technical point of view the implementation, through a wide recourse to the market, of solutions that will support the Administration in the pursuit of its economic, efficiency and effectiveness goals.

The exclusive mission at the service of Public Administration excludes Consip’s activity from the entrepreneurial logic of the maximization of profit and the free market competition framework. The framework agreements with the Ministry, on the other hand, tie its yearly operational planning and the various phases of its corporate programming to results and objectives that are qualified by their effective pursuit of public interest goals.

Chronology

• 11 August 1997 Establishment of Consip  - Appointment of  Managing Director Luigi Scimìa
• 19 November 1997 Issue of legislative decree n. 414
• 22 December 1997 Ministerial Decree entrusts Consip S.p.a. with the IT services of the Ministry
• 2 February 1998 Corporate registration No. 1 is issued
• 16 March 1998 Roberto Falavolti appointed Chief Executive Officer
• 17 June 1998 Ministerial Decree identifies the State-reserved IT activities entrusted to Consip
• 19 October 1998 First meeting of the IT Interdepartmental Committee
• 15 July 1998 Presentation of the First Three-year Unified Plan of the Treasury
• 4 August 1998 Consip presents its “Integrated Treasury Information System” project to the first Chief of Department Conference
• 18 December 1998 Awarding of the first European tender for the development and maintenance of the applications of the RGS-CdC Information System
• 11 January 1999 Corporate registration No. 100 is issued
• 1 March 1999 The first home page of the Ministry of the Treasury web site goes on-line
• 1 July 1999 The new DEC of the Communicative Center is inaugurated
• 9 August 1999 The first ICT Treasury-Consip framework contract is signed
• 17 October 1999 The first service agreement of the framework contract is signed
• 21 October 1999 Launch of the Treasury information system’s conversion to the euro
• 27 December 1999 The 2000 Budget Law introduces new Public Administration purchasing methods
• 20 January 2000 The company’s start-up phase ends
• 28 September 2000 Launch of the new Service Personale Tesoro (SPT) project
• 24 February 2000 Ministerial Decree establishes the service structure contemplated by art. 26 of the 2000 Budget Law
• 30 March 2000  Establishment of the Support to Public Administration Purchases Division
• 31 March 2000 Launch of the “Acquisti in rete per la P.A.” project - First framework contract for the purchase of telephone services - Launch of the Public Administration Marketplace
• 16 January 2001 Corporate registration No. 300 is assigned
• 14 February 2001 A new Board of Directors is appointed, President  Fortunato Cocco
• 1 March 2001 The first homepage of the Treasury Ministry goes on-line
  15 September 2001 First on-line tender- Video projectors for the University of Bologna
• 31 December 2001 Management of ICT solutions worth 78m euros for the Ministry of the Treasury - The Rationalization Program reaches a transacted value of 294m euros on the framework contract system
• 4 April 2002 Presidential Decree 101 defines the modalities and criteria that public administrations must follow in their electronic purchases of goods and services
• 24 April 2002 A new Board of Directors is appointed – President Gustavo Piga
• 7 May 2002 Ferruccio Ferranti is appointed Chief Executive Officer
• 31 December 2002 Management of ICT solutions worth 90m euros for the Treasury - The transacted value of framework contracts reaches 1,044 mln euros
• 1 July 2003 Operational launch of the Mercato Elettronico della Pubblica Amministrazione
• 31 December 2003 Management of ICT solutions worth 75m euros for the Ministry of the Economy and Finance - The transacted value of framework contracts reaches 1,959 million euros
• 12 February 2003 Corporate registration No. 500 is assigned
• 27 April 2004 The first “paperless” tender is implemented
  23 July 2004 The “MEF-Consip – Master in E-Procurement” prize is awarded to the winning universities
• 31 December 2004  Management of ICT solutions worth 105m euros for the MEF - The transacted value of framework contracts reaches 932m euros, while the MEPA registers a value of approximately 8m euros
• 1 February 2005 The twinning project with Turkey is launched after the EU’s selection of the Italian eProcurement solution for the Turkish government
• 10 June 2005 Appointment of a new Board of Directors–President Roberto Radice
• 29 November 2005 Danilo Broggi is appointed Chief Executive Officer
• 31 December 2005  Management of ICT solutions worth some 105m euros for the MEF - The transacted value of the framework contract system reaches 945m euros, while that of the Electronic Market hits 30m euros
• 31 May 2006 The Point RGS project is awarded as Laureate of  the Computer World Honors Program
• 10 May 2006 Launch of the Premio MEPA, an award for the administrations and enterprises that use the Electronic Market
• 23 January 2007  Launch of “Filo diretto con il Programma”,  Italy’s first public administration interactive customer care initiative